“Love is Blind”: Chapter One

It’s been a while since I’ve posted and, due to the holidays drawing nearer, I figured that I could give y’all an early Christmas present. A couple of months ago, I posted an excerpt from a story I’m working on: “Love is Blind”. Today I am allowing you to read the entire first chapter–which includes the previously mentioned excerpt. Enjoy. xxMia

Chapter One

Love is so overrated,” Jessi sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear on that cold February morning. She rolled her eyes at the simultaneous gasp of Tara and me as she reached for her hot drink. “I mean, seriously, why can’t you just bang a guy and get it over with?”

“Uh, hello? Where is Jessi and who is this man whore that has taken over her body?” Tara waved her hand in front of Jessi’s face multiple times before it was smacked away.

“Jessi, you’re only saying this because you just got dumped.” I pointed out flatly.

“I did not get dumped, we’re arguing; that’s all.”

“And does this arguing seem to involve Lauren from chemistry, because I think it does.”

“He’s going through a phase—“

“For crying out loud, he slept with her!”

“Tara,” Jessi hissed, her voice raising an octave, “watch your mouth! He might’ve slept with her, but he loves me.”

“You believed that bullshit?” Tara asked adding, “Plus, I thought you just said that ‘love is overrated’.”

Jessi looked from Tara to me and back to Tara again. She took a deep sigh and placed her head in the palm of her hands. “What am I going to do?”

I shot her a look before continuing, “But that doesn’t mean you’re worthless, it’s just him thinking with his dick and not his head. No girl wants a dickhead as a boyfriend, now does she?”

“He was so sweet to me though—“

“Apparently he was very sweet to that Lauren chick too,” Tara giggled, nearly choking on her cider.

“Why her?” Jessi moaned, raising her head.

“Well, for starters, she’s easy…” Tara snorted.

“She’s not even pretty!” Jessi threw her hands in the air dramatically, “Have you seen her nose? She looks like a bird!”

“Honey,” I patted her hand soothingly, “we all know that whores are ugly.”

“Huh?”

“Whores are easy, Jessi. And if they weren’t easy, they wouldn’t get any, because they’re ugly. Therefore whores are ugly.”

“Since when is Lauren a whore, though?”

“For crying out loud woman, she slept with your boyfriend!” Tara whispered frantically, but still caused some weird looks from the couple next to us.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Jessi replied sarcastically as she stood up from the table and put her coat on.

“Where are we going?” I asked, standing up and slipping on my knit hat.

“I’m going home to sulk and watch Gone with the Wind while I eat all the early Valentine’s Day chocolates I can find in the drugstore. You’re welcome to join if you’d like.” She added, slipping her scarf around her neck.

Knowing that this recovery time was crucial after a break up and not wanting to watch Viven Leigh pout ever again, I replied no, but thanks and then asked Tara if she would join me for the rest of the day.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Tara asked Jessi as we walked outside.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine, not like it doesn’t happen every day, right?” A hint of a smile crossed her face as she hugged us both goodbye and walked in the direction of her car.

“Poor thing,” Tara shook her head, “she was head over heels for that douche bag. Too bad we didn’t tell her about him before she got caught up in this mess.”

Buttoning up my jacket I replied, “She was new; she didn’t know everyone. I agree to disagree, though.”

“Why would that be?”

“Your heart needs to be broken at some point, or you’ll never know how to fix it later in life.”

Ten minutes later, Tara and I walked into a small boutique on the corner of Main Street. We were greeted with a friendly “hello” from the lady behind the counter as we made our way to the back of the store. “Look at this dress!” Tara exclaimed from the discount rack, taking out a small black dress and holding it up against her body. “Don’t you think it’s adorable?”

“I don’t think adorable would be the word for it,” I said pushing through the same rack.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s a little too punk princess for me. Now this—“ I said, pulling out a floral patterned sundress, “is adorable.”

“I swear, Scarlett, of all the things we have in common fashion is most definitely not one of them.”

I nodded my head and went back to shuffling through the discount rack. My mind wandered away from the store and to the night before at the restaurant with Josh. I loved my boyfriend. We had been dating for nearly six months but every time I saw him, I got butterflies in my stomach. He was always surprising me with a new trinket or gift every week and a surprise kiss right before we had to go to class. He was perfect.

I felt sorry for Jessi, though, I really did. She had been so devoted to Cameron, the whole three months they had dated, but he turned around and screwed her over. Watching her fight her emotions in public but to know she was breaking down as soon as she got home, really made me feel horrible. How I wanted to cut that boy’s manhood off and feed it to a bunch of alligators.

The ding of the bell sounded as the door at the front of the boutique opened. I looked ahead, but couldn’t see anyone walking in because of the high shelves and racks in my line of vision. I went back to searching through clothes when Tara grabbed me by the arms and whispered, “Don’t look, but Colby Mindon just walked in with his mom!”

I stood rigid as she released me, turning my body around to face her. “Where is he?” I said, craning my neck to get a glimpse at him.

“I said, no looking!” She patted my cheek disapprovingly as her mouth curved up in a smile.

“What’s he wearing?”

“Plaid polo with tan kakis and Sperrys.”

“And the color of the polo is….?”

She closed her eyes and said slowly, “Blue and white,”

“Oh god,” I smiled imagining him walking around in his blue and white plaid polo. “We should go talk to him.”

“Maybe, I should go talk to him.”

“Why can’t I talk to him too?”

“You have a boyfriend…” She stated in a “duh” tone.

“Yes, exactly. I have a boyfriend, not a husband.”

“Woah-oh,” she shook her head making a tsk-tsk sound. “What are we going to do with Scarlett?”

“Wish you were me, that’s what you’re going to do.” With that, I stepped around Tara and walked to the other side of the store. Having a clearer space to see, I spotted Colby Mindon glued to his mother’s side swiping his finger across the screen of his cell phone. I smiled as I began to make my way towards him, but stopped when I realized that his mom was buying a couple of items at the front counter.

“Tara,” I said, “Tara!”

She scooted through the racks of clothes to my side, asked what the matter was, but realized almost immediately what was going on. She pursed her lips, considering her choices, then handed me the first thing she could grab off of the shelf and pushed me into the line behind them.

Unfortunately Tara had bad aim, and instead of landing behind them I was pushed directly into Colby himself. “Oh God,” I said, trying to focus my eyes on his adorable yet confused face, “I didn’t see you there,”

“Well, obviously,” he smiled, “Your name is Scarlett, right?”

Ohmygodheknowsmyname!!! “Yeah, some people call me that.”

“And what do the others call you?”

“I get Scar a lot, but that’s only from my close friends.”

“Scar….” He slipped his phone into his pocket and met my gaze, “I like that.”

I could feel my face slowly turning red and tried hard to think about something other than his god-like face.

“So what’re you buying?” He asked me, looking down at my hand.

“Umm….” I opened up my hand and found a black, scrunched up thong in it.

“Woah,” Colby’s eyes twinkled, “I didn’t know that you were the type of girl that liked lace.”

“Oh,” all hopes of my face going back to its normal color were gone, “It’s not for me, it’s for my friend Tara…she asked me to buy it for her. Becauseshedoesn’thaveanymoneywithherthatswhy.” I added when I noticed the questioning look he was giving me.

You know the saying “saved by the bell”? Something like that happened to me at that moment. His mom called his name and he turned, finding her waiting for him at the door. “Too bad,” he shook his head, laughing, “I’ll see you later, Scar.”

When the both of them had left, Tara came out of her hiding place and stood beside me, staring after him. “He called me Scar,” I sighed, looking at Tara, “He knows who I am.”

“That’s fabulous,” she raised her eyebrows, “I think he was disappointed that the thong wasn’t for you, though.”

“Shut up,” I snapped, “Next time you get to talk to him while holding a box of tampons in your hand. How’d you like that?”

She playfully punched me in the waist and we were giggling when we heard the sales lady ask, “Are you going to buy that or not?”

We turned our heads to the middle-aged woman, wearing an overload of eye makeup and a bad perm. “No, sorry,” I shrugged, placing the thong back on the shelf that it had originally been placed.

Later that night, after I got off the phone with Josh, I thought about Jessi and what that loser, Cameron, had put her through. I sighed, and glanced at my clock. It was only one a.m. and I suspected that Jessi had probably drowned within romance films, keeping her awake. I reached for my cell phone, clicked on her contact, and waited while the phone rang.

The receiver picked up and the first thing I heard was some sniffles then, “Hello?”

“Hello my beautiful butterfly, why are you still awake?”

“What do you­–oh,” she replied, “It’s past midnight.”

I mentally sighed and said, “What movie is it now?”

“Breaking Dawn, but it’s paused at the moment.”

This time I really did sigh, “You mean to tell me you’re watching the most depressing film of all time? Jessi, you know better than that!”

“I thought I did,” I could almost picture her shaking her head, “but, apparently, I’m just as naïve as I seem.”

“Honey, you need to sleep,” was all I could think to say before continuing, “How would you like it if you come over to my house next weekend? It can be just you, me, and Tara. We’ll make some prank calls, look through magazines, watch some horror films, and maybe, just maybe, have a pillow fight.”

“Sounds cheesy…”

“Cheesy like the spray cheese or cheesy like that nasty-ass brie cheese?”

I heard a faint laugh, and had to press the phone against my ear in order to confirm that I’d heard something. “Brie cheese tastes like snot.”

“Spray cheese it is, then!”

This time, she really did laugh and said, “Thanks a bunch, Scar. You and Tara really are great friends to have when guys screw up your life.”

[…] didn’t jump back into creative writing until I was 14 when I had a story idea called “Love is Blind” (of which I have, in the past, posted chapters on here). I had two failed drafts of this, both […]

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the girl behind the blog

hi and welcome to my blog! i’m mia, the content creator, blogger, knitter and obsessive cat lady. i’m currently a college student studying español + français. i’m an aspiring adult, and an avid harry potter enthusiast. join me every-other week as i bring you my twenty-something year-old musings + various lifestyle advice and tips that i bring to you from the keyboard of my little computer in some coffee shop in a place i call my home.